


let's dance, space kid!

by prouvairing



Series: earth may not be your home [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Grantaire, Alien Musichetta, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Shapeshifting, bad dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 09:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4133247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouvairing/pseuds/prouvairing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alien soft drinks, human pop music, and dance lessons aboard the good ship <i>Buttercup.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	let's dance, space kid!

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from this play list right here: [let's dance space kid](http://8tracks.com/splicers/let-s-dance-space-kid)
> 
> The name of Joly's ship may or may not be a Princess Bride reference, I didn't do it on purpose but it was pointed out to me, and 1) Joly would 2) it's probably the kind of movie that would be a classic even a hundred years or so after first contact.
> 
> I would also extend a blanket, heartfelt thank you to all those who left lovely comments on the previous fic. I didn't really expect such a response, you all are gems!

They are on land, technically, based on some small forgotten moon, where no one is likely to disturb them. The ABC fleet, as Courfeyrac is happy to call them – is a rag-tag group of small and medium-sized ships that cannot hold all fourteen of them at once without turning into a crowded mess. They’re currently docked in a haphazard circle in one of the moon’s craters.

In the evenings, they usually all huddle on the _Patria_ , the largest in the fleet –  the ship that is Enjolras’ actual child and which he treasures more than probably anything. It is the only other ship – besides the IMS ship that Joly has renamed _Buttercup_ – that wasn’t originally stolen.

There aren’t enough sitting spots for all of them, but the kitchen is big and equipped for all their dietary needs, and they don’t mind sitting on the floor or in each other’s laps.

But on this particular afternoon, while the Triumvirate schemes and plans on the _Patria_ , Grantaire is with his crew mates aboard the good ship _Buttercup._ Musichetta is perched on the console, on a spot devoid of any sensitive controls, while Joly and Bossuet are sprawled on the floor and drinking a particular drink from Musichetta’s home planet.

Grantaire hasn’t tried any yet – it’s a thick milky substance, which Joly swears tastes kind of like tomato, kind of like strawberry. Joly is now giggling against Bossuet’s shoulder, and his eyes are really shiny. Bossuet keeps elbowing him and whispering things like, “Babe. Babe. The walls are like _happiness._ ”

Joly stretches and awkwardly wraps an arm around their shoulders, leans in to giggle some more.

“Nooooo,” he whispers back, though everyone can hear him perfectly well. “Babe. They’re too soft for that.”

Musichetta laughs – a high, cawing sound. Her legs are long, dangling off the edge of the console, ending in sharp talons. Her skin, peeking in between bright soft feathers, is dark and thick and shiny as leather. She told Grantaire once that it rains glass on her planet – rainforest amounts of rain, too. Her skin has to be strong enough to withstand that. She told him, once, of the grooming times with her sisters, when they scraped off bits of cooled, solid glass off each other's feathers. It's a bonding experience, apparently.

Musichetta also says that she is the best singer this side of the Milky Way, and Bossuet and Joly are way too smitten to say anything to the contrary.

She sings when she is particularly content, which Joly and Bossuet tell him is something that people on Terra do too. The frequency of her voice, when she sings, seems to hurt their ears, though – the humans have learned to keep ear plugs on them at all times.

Marius, the only other non-Terran in the fleet, doesn’t seem to mind at all, though they confessed once, turning a lovely, embarrassed shade of periwinkle, that they don’t find it particularly enjoyable.

Grantaire copes by turning off his hearing, or, if he’s in the mood, turning into one of Musichetta’s species.

When he does, her screeching suddenly starts to make sense, and he can listen to her for hours. His eyes, when they are big and black and shiny like hers, also see at least three extra colours among her feathers.

“I had no idea,” she says, among her giggles. Grantaire is a watchful black cat on the navigator’s chair. “I swear I had no idea it’d make them like _this._ ”

Grantaire’s tail twitches, and he tries to make those purring sounds cats make. He still isn’t quite good at that, so he turns into a parrot whose colours mimic Musichetta’s. As a parrot, he can mimic speech, though he’s not quite as eloquent.

“They’re drunk!” he says. “Drunk!”

Musichetta smiles with sharp carnivorous teeth, and takes a sip from her own glass.

“Lightweights,” she says.

“Lightweights!” Grantaire parrots.

Bossuet roars with laughter like that’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Joly is running a hand up and down their bald scalp, with a fascinated expression.

“Do you want some, R?” Musichetta asks, reaching out with her glass. He flies to her wrist, uncaring of his own sharp claws. They're not gonna hurt her.

He eyes the glass curiously and ruffles his feathers. Musichetta laughs again.

“Drunk!” he says.

“Better not,” Musichetta says, then drains her glass, dislodging Grantaire. “Who knows what effect it has on tiny Terran creatures.”

Bossuet is whispering in Joly’s ear, now, while he steals glances towards Musichetta. Their looks are heated, and clearly up to no good. It makes her smile even sharper.

Suddenly, Joly gasps, and stumbles upright.

He stands on wobbly, baby-deer knees and intones, “ _I want to dance!_ ”

He sings it, and follows it with, “ _I want to dance! I want lust–and–love–and a smattering of romance!_ ”

Grantaire cocks his head, and Musichetta says, “What?”

“It’s a _song_ ,” Bossuet says, standing up themself. “Old, old song. Pre-contact times.”

“ _I want to dance,”_ Joly is still singing, then, only mildly unsteady, he reaches out to Musichetta and grabs one of her hands. “Please dance with me, love!”

She laughs, and ruffles her feather in embarrassment. “Joly, I’ve never done that.”

“No dancing!” Joly says, and he looks positively crestfallen. “But what’s anything good for, without dancing? R, you dance, right?”

Grantaire would roll his eyes, were he not a parrot. He screeches, “Glow cloud!”

His natural form is incapable of anything resembling dancing. His natural form cannot hear, or see, or smell, or _touch_ , for goodness’ sake. It is, quite literally, a formless cloud of potential.

“You still won’t show us that, though?” Bossuet asks, reaching out with a gentle finger to stroke Grantaire’s head.

Grantaire nips at his hand in indignation, “Naked!”

They’d asked him to show them the first night they’d picked him up, and he’d been outraged. They’d _just met._ Were all humans so forward?

He could technically show them now – he hasn’t had qualms about strolling around the _Buttercup_ without clothes before. But he likes to milk his dramatic outrage for all that it’s worth.

(And he won’t admit it, but there’s something less ingrained and outrageous about being naked in his human form. It hasn’t been drilled into him as something _intimate_ since birth. His natural form is a whole different story).

“We’ll teach you,” Joly says. “We’ll teach you both. R, get out that parrot!”

Grantaire obliges, shifting to his human form, sprawled sideways in the navigator chair, black curls in disarray.

He drawls, “Get _out_ the parrot? Excuse you, I _am_ the parrot.”

Joly waves a hand in dismissal, apparently forgetting that he’s still holding Musichetta’s and jerking her around in the process. He giggles and shoots her an apologetic look.

He clears his throat. “Nurse Lesgles, would you please introduce these two distinguished extraterrestial lifeforms the _song_ of our _people_?”

Bossuet moves towards the controls and puts on something hard and fast, with a bass line that picks up the beat of Grantaire’s brand new human heart.

He always liked that about human music – how it mimics the pumping of their blood and the sounds of their bodies.

He also likes, he soon finds, the way those bodies move with the beat. Bossuet and Joly are mellow and uninhibited, under the influence of alien drinks, and they move a little clumsily, but joyously.

“No, no, no,” Bossuet says, grabbing Grantaire’s hips. “Move them like _this._ ”

They move together, close. Joly wolf-whistles. What Grantaire and Bossuet are doing, though, is positively conservative in comparison with the dirty, grinding _thing_ he’s got going on with Musichetta. They’re flush, so whatever his body is doing, hers does also.

She smiles like the bird of prey she is.

Grantaire doesn’t mind much. Bossuet clasps his hands and guides him in a jumping-up-and-down move that makes his head spin.

He decides, he likes dancing.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to have a part 2, but I am not sure it'll happen any time soon so it's posted by itself for now!  
> The song Joly is singing is Four Simple Words by Frank Turner. You decide what song they're actually dancing to, though.


End file.
